The corner of Taliesin’s lip twitches.
“Then we’ll make this brief.” The leader begins to pace between our chairs, her hand resting on the hilt of the sword at her hip. But even as she speaks, her knuckles have gone white. “The Order has been lying to you, Angharad Morgan. They don’t want the return of the stars so that magic can flow freely again. They never have.”
I grit my teeth, my gaze drawn to Taliesin again. He gives me an almost imperceptible nod, like he’s agreeing with the rebel, whose name we still don’t know.
But of course he is. He fed me the same story.
“Magic comes from the stars,” I say, turning my attention back to her. “And if there’s one thing I know about the Order, it’s that they want more of it, not less. It serves the kingdom. It strengthens the army. Without it—”
“You’re so close, it almost pains me to tell you the rest.” She stops in front of me, squaring her shoulders like Taliesin isn’t even in the room. In the cave, I thought they’d come for him. Now I’m not so sure. Her focus is entirely on me. “The Order wants the scrolls. They want the stars. But not for the reasons you believe. If they get their hands on it, they’ll restore them only tousethem. They’ll rip the magic straight out and funnel it into their talismans, so they can bend more power to their own goals. For the army and the warriors and the king.Notfor the people.”
A long beat passes in stunning silence. I swallow beneath her sharp gaze, my heartbeat loud in my ears. Part of me instinctually believes her, but another part recoils, screams that she’s wrong. That the Order would never bind the magic of the stars. That they serve the kingdom, always placing its people above all else.
But doubt prickles at the back of my mind, the same insistent itch I felt when I first heard the Ballad’s name.
I don’t want her to be right. It would unravel everything I’ve ever known. But…hasn’t it unravelled already? My world splitthe moment I saw Taliesin Wynn in the back of the Twin Talons Inn, ale in hand, his eyes meeting mine with what I now realize was recognition.
In that instant, something within me whispered that everything was about to change. I just never imagined how completely it would.
My hands clench in my lap. “How can we be sure this isn’t a theory? Assumptions with no basis in truth? I understand you hate the Order and the control they hold over the kingdom’s citizens. I even getwhyyou hate them. But that doesn’t make them the monsters you claim them to be.”
She beckons someone forward. “We have proof.”
A tall elven man with blond hair cascading to his waist steps forward, a scroll clasped in his hand. He bows to the leader. “Penderyn Rhian.”
The back of my neck prickles.Penderyn.Head of birds. It’s an old term, one I haven’t heard in…I can’t even remember how long, or how I know it at all. The implication hits anyway. Are the rebels in league with the firebirds?
My stomach knots. Isthathow they found us?
“Thank you, Gethin.” Rhian takes the scroll and presses it into my hands.
“Have a look,” she says. “You might recognize the handwriting.”
Frowning, I unroll it, my eyes scanning the words. It’s an assignment. For…Osian. He was meant to track a rebel suspected of plotting an ambush on the guards protecting an object of great importance. The Harp of Arawn. He was ordered to go alone.Tell no one. And if he succeeded, his reward would be a greater bounty of magic once the Order completed their plan to funnel power from the hidden stars.
Hiddenstars. Not dead.
My frown deepens as I read it again, slower this time. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
But my thoughts snag on three words, over and over.Osian.Assignment. Alone.
A chill slices down my spine. I don’t want to believe this is why he ventured out alone that night, why I had to chase him through the borderlands and drag him back from the brink. But itmustbe. The High Swynwragedd sent him without me. They must have expected him to succeed.
What they didn’t expect was…me.
“It makes a great deal of sense, and you know it,” Rhian says in a quiet voice. “Look at the writing.”
I do. The assignment is penned in a scrawl I know too well—High Swynwraig Seren’s unmistakable hand, identical to every scroll she’s ever given me. And at the bottom, Osian’s signature cuts across the page, sealing his oath to the Order.
My fingers tighten, crumpling the parchment.
The gut punch of betrayal never comes, at least not from the Order’s actions. But from Osian? The sting of disappointment is brutal. Howcouldhe? He agreed to this—to funnel the magic, to hoard it, to keep it from everyone else. To let the High Swynwragedd reward him with more than his fair share.
He is a soldier, after all. The thought leaves a bitter taste burning at the back of my throat. He probably thinks he’s earned it, more than those who need it far more than he ever could.
I toss the scroll aside, aware of Taliesin’s gaze tracking my every move.
“Well?” Rhian asks, brow arched.
